Finding top charities

We have done considerable research into finding the most scientifically-backed charities. We heavily rely on the research done by GiveWell, although we have used external research from other charity elevators and sources. Our information on top charities is reviewed in detail and we talk to others in the field as well as to the charities themselves. We aim to make the most of our grants in a way that leads to even more donations and increases general support for the charities (for example, we often employ donation matches).

Our process for picking what charities to support and recommend is summarized to the right and described in detail below.

In summary:

Find experts you can trust - research and compare charity evaluators

Research and compare top charities

Consult other experts in the field

Communicate with top charities

Leverage donations to do the most good possible

The process for comparing charities is a long and complex one. These are the five broad steps that can be completed with considerable variation depending on the charity its cause.

1. Find experts you can trust.

The first step is to research and compare charity evaluators. Charity evaluators are organizations where experts work full time researching charities. Charity evaluators exist to allow donors to get a more informed view of charities and the charity sector as a whole. They also identify top charities that can be compared to find the charity a donor wants to donate to.

Charity evaluators are extremely helpful in picking a top charity because they are domain experts and summarize all relevant research in one location. If you’ve ever looked through primary research, you can understand how valuable this is. They also teach you the basics of charity evaluation, much like an introductory course at a university. This makes it so you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Several members of our board and consulting board have worked or are working for different charity evaluators.

There are two different types of charity evaluator:

Threshold charity evaluators

Top charity evaluators

Threshold charity evaluators tend to rank many charities (in some case thousands) on a few basic criteria, such as whether they have public finances or fundraising expenses. A charity has to pass a certain threshold on these basic criteria to be considered a good charity. This process often results in hundreds of charities receiving top marks.

Although threshold charity evaluators can provide some information, their reviews are rather shallow and often miss the most important aspects of charities, such as evidence of impact. They are more useful to rule out particularly weak charities than to identify strong ones. Some examples of threshold charities are Guidestar, Charity Navigator and Charity Watch.

Top charity evaluators spend the vast majority of their time reviewing charities that they think are most promising. They generally only recommend a few charities but review them very carefully. Their reviews are often considerably deeper and more thorough than the reviews done by threshold charities. If a top charity evaluator is good it can find very high impact charities and its recommendations can be a great start for your charity search.

Charity elevators can be compared on both objective and subjective criteria.

The objective criteria consist of:

How transparent a charity evaluator is. If a charity evaluator does not publicly share its process and the reasons for its recommendations, then it is hard to check whether you agree with and trust them.

How experienced they are. There's a lot to know about charities. However, do not confuse experience with age. A 99 year old can have less relevant experience in charity than a 19 year old. What matters is how much quality experience they have in the field.

How well-run the evaluation organization is.

How many intelligent research hours go into charity comparison. Some evaluators put in half a year’s research into a charity before recommending it! If somebody puts this much time into their recommendation, that means they’re more likely to have thought of all relevant considerations.

By most of these objective measures, the strongest charity evaluator is without a doubt GiveWell, which has been called the “gold standard” for charity evaluation.

On subjective criteria, it is worth reviewing a charity evaluator's values and mission to see if they align with yours. Charities evaluators have different values and different focuses. For example if you care primarily about animals Animal Charity Evaluators is the strongest choice, as it focuses exclusively on how to help the most animals. GiveWell on the other hand, has publicly said that while they do care for animals, they care about them considerably less than humans. These subjective ranks change based on the person, so we can not suggest which charity evaluator will be strongest on these.

Based on much review of charity evaluators, Charity Science primarily relies on the work done by GiveWell, although we keep tabs on research published by many charity evaluators including all of the ones listed above.

2. Research and compare the top charities.

After you have picked a charity evaluator you can start researching its top charities. Often this will mean you will have to do research on one to five charities. The reason we suggest only researching top charities is that even full time charity evaluators cannot compare all of the charities out there, but must narrow them down using heuristic and broad categorizations. There are over 100,000 charities out there and we have limited resources. As we have mentioned elsewhere, prioritization is key to doing the greatest good.

Depending on the depth of a review that a charity evaluator posts, you might be able to get a good sense of a charity and how it operates. GiveWell posts extremely detailed reviews about its top charities (here's an example) and, if you ready a charity review by them, you will understand why they gave that charity a top rating.

The criteria GiveWell uses to select charities can be found on its website. A summary of them is as follows:

Science! This means randomized-controlled trials, the golden standard of research. GiveWell also require multiple studies as they be study could be a fluke or be biased bias.

Marginal impact. This refers to where donations are spent.

Talking to the charity to make sure that they do what they say they do and that they do it well. Theory’s all well and good, but implementation is often harder than you’d expect.

Room for more funding. Despite what most charities will tell you, they often don’t need any more money. In fact, any additional money will sometimes go into savings and might not be spent for years.

Transparency. If a charity doesn’t tell you anything about what they’re actually doing, it’s hard to tell if they’re effective or not.

Cost-effective. How much good a charity does per dollar donated. You can use various metrics like Disability Adjusted Life-Years (DALY’s). Cost effectiveness can be difficult to distill into a specific number, but can be approached using various heuristics, such as that money goes further in the developing world than in rich countries.

Strong track record.

After reading reviews of the top charities you are considering, you can start to make an informed choice about which one would be best to donate to.

If you follow the research of organizations such as IPA and GiveWell you will learn about other possible high impact charities. It might also be interesting to look at how various causes and charities compare. Data for this information can be seen here, here and here.

3. Talk to Experts

The next step after you have an understanding of the strongest charities in the field is to talk to experts. Talking to someone within the charity evaluation field is always a good idea. You can run your ideas past them and hear about what they think. You can also ask more specific questions that might not have an answer elsewhere.

You can contact us here (we love to talk about charities) or you can contact your favorite charity evaluator using their website. Charity evaluators often love talking to donors about which charity to donate to. It’s part of the service they provide.

4. Talk to the Charities

You can also directly talk to charities you are considering, but keep in mind they will be more biased than a charity evaluator or independent foundation. Sometimes, it is also helpful to talk to an expert in the cause area you are looking into.

This is also the time to get your own sense of how a charity is run. You don’t have to be a grumpy old man to know that all the book smarts in the world don't guarantee perfect execution. Intuition is generally a very unreliable way of gathering knowledge, but when it comes to people, research shows that intuitions are useful. Use your intuition to the world’s advantage by judging a charity’s staff. But be nice, as charity workers generally have good intentions.

5. Leveraging donations

The final step is leveraging donations. Donations can be given straight to the charities, but often there are other ways to do even more good. Here are just a few examples:

Look into possible tax savings and deductibility. These may allow you to donate more than you could have otherwise. Shoot us an email if you want help figuring out tax deductibility in Canada.

Double your donations. If you’re doing a considerable donation (anything above $200) do a shoutout to your friends on Facebook saying that you’ll match any donation they make. Make sure to mention a cap though, otherwise you might end up in charity debt and I hear they’re quite ruthless in collecting. Sometimes you job can also match charitable donations, so it's good to check on that as well.

Only donate to a particular activity. This can be useful if you think one thing a charity is doing is much more valuable than the other work it’s doing.

Bargain with the charity by pooling your money. If you approach a charity with a request that they run a study it’s a different story if you’re potentially donating $10 and $10,000. One of the reasons that some foundations were created was to allow donors with the same views on smart giving to pool their money to make an even larger difference.

This is a largely simplified version of a way to find charities doing the greatest good. GiveWell has posted a guide to charity evaluation with specific questions to ask for different causes. If you are interested in learning more about charity evaluation, both our blog and GiveWell's blog have a lot of content on it.

Wow! You made it to the bottom of this. If you're this interested in charity evaluation, it would be worth getting connected!

Courtesy of xkcd

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